Whoever has spent even one day in the furry fandom would know that female hyenas have elongated clits in the form of pseudo-penises. (It's actually quite fascinating; they don't have a vagina the way humans do, all and any coupling needs to be done by docking. Giving birth also happens through the clit, which I imagine would be quite painful considering the size of the cubs.) As such, I sometimes see people use hyenas as a symbol for intersex people, as a big "BIOLOGY IS NOT BINARY!"

That is a sweet sentiment, and to be clear there's no harm in doing this. I still however want to say that well... that's not what intersex means.

Intersex doesn't mean "outside of the penis/vagina binary." It means "outside the sex norms of a given specie." As it stands, having pseudo-penises is very much the norm by hyena standards. Intersex animals do exists, such as male calico cats (for those unaware: the calico phenotype can only appear if the cat has XX chromosomes. A male calico is a calico with XXY). If you're hanging in queer spaces, you probably see posts about "non-binary animals" all the time. These animals are intersex. This lioness who started masculinizing out of the blue is intersex. I really wish people used the word "intersex" in those posts because that'd prompt people to actually look the word up (and also you guys know I am Tired of people conflating intersex with non binary) but we've already established I am not getting that, so.

Similarly, every once in a while I see someone workshopping sci-fi or fantasy worldbuilding and saying "this whole alien specie is intersex!" No, bestie. A whole specie is not intersex. If your alien specie has 5 primary sexes, that's unusual by human standards, but that's not being intersex. If your alien specie has 5 primary sexes and your oc is specifically outside these 5, then NOW you can say your oc is intersex.